Product description

Capacity:500 GB

Manufacturer's Description

Are you running out of hard drive capacity? Do you need to archive some important digital documents, photos, or music? This elegant external hard drive, reminiscent of a book, is the perfect solution. It takes no more space than a paperback book. Collect two or more and they nest neatly together like volumes on a shelf.

Easy to set up, easy to use - Installation is a snap because you don't really install this drive, you just plug it in and it's ready to use.

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I was very happy with my first WD "My Book" and have just bought a second.

It's neat, simple and incredibly quiet. It discretely turns itself on and off when the PC it's attached to is switched on or off, so there's no need for a power switch, which is one of my favourite things about it.

The slowly flashing blue light on the front is just a little bit sci-fi but not too distracting. It's quite classy.

The only connectivity is USB, so it's not the quickest drive in the world, but it's easily good enough for archiving and backup purposes, hence the 'My Book' brand- it's the kind of thing that's supposed to sit quietly on a shelf, it's not a rugged outdoors crazy-usage kind of drive.

In my job I work with some very valuable data files and we've learnt from experience that NO hard drive is ever GUARANTEED not to fail and that you should ALWAYS have two copies of EVERYTHING- I can't stress that enough. Obviously this drive's no different, but that's not a criticism of this drive unless somebody can show me any drive that works perfectly forever.

The case does feel a little bit flimsy compared to some of the metal-cased external HDs I've had. However for a keep-at-home extra storage and backup option, the WD My Books are currently a bargain and I'll be buying another one soon as well.

still up and running..been around 10years. Use mainly a laptop with not so much storage space so this works real handy. It did happen to stop at some point, think I accidentally pulled the plug out thinking it was off. Called up customer care, they sent a new plug even tho it was past the warranty. That didn't sort the issue tho, just wouldn't switch on. Resorted to the old pick it up give it a shake method and it was as good as new. Didn't lose any data! Getting the model with a switch on the harddrive itself would have been handy tho.

Not being very computer literate, I made this first purchase of an external drive with some trepidation.

However it worked like a dream straight out of the box. Plugged it in the USB slot,switched power on and my Vista SP1 laptop recognised it immediately.

As recommended in previous reviews, immediately re-formatted the default FAT32 of the new drive to the NTFS of my laptop. The advantage of doing so before the drive has been used is that "Quick Format" can be used. This took seconds and was so easy I had to re-check that it had actually been done.

Later I successfully created a full back up of my entire laptop on the new external drive using Acronis True Image Home. The 500GB size means plenty space for future back ups etc.

I am very pleased with the Western Digital My Book 500GB and would recommend it to others.

Data needs to be available right: SO relaiibility is important: 1 had 2 (1 as back up with another smaller older Gericom HDD), and thought after a few months I was safe with that: Alas no. The gericom is still fine 5 years on, neither WD is.

Issues:1. Run off 2 USB ports WD HDDs seem mutually exclusive so you can't just run both and drag across to back up between them.2. Both my WD HDD failed: All data (and back up) lost. 1 after 1 year, the other after 18 months.3. On 2 same items: 1 had Mini USB plug, the other had a micro USB, major drag switching cables, not just unplugging and re-plugging!

I use three of these drives - one as the main working drive (I keep my actual PC drive free of data) and others which are used for backup along with some 1TB Freecom drives which I inter-change.

I like the design of these drives and the fact they stand on end thus reducing the footprint on my desk. They run almost silently, are fast and, unlike many other external hard drives, at most the casing only become mildly warm to touch rather than quite hot.

I've bought many Western Digital drives - starting several years ago with 40GB drives which felt huge at the time but are now virtually obsolete. In all the years I've used them - and I am quite a heavy user, I've never had one fail (unlike several PC internal hard drives which have died and taken all my data with them).

I can't fault the drives - they fulfil their promises and perform well so can be purchased in confidence.

After returning my Seagate Freeagent (bought from a different retailer) after getting the click of doom, I thought to try the Western Digital external drive, as they have long been associated with quality drives (I certainly have had no problems with their internal hard drives).

However, a mere 3 weeks after having the drive, with it sitting on my desk and suffering no knocks / trauma / general end user abuse, the drive dismounted itself. Format, remount... remount... fail.

Returning the drive back as non-working and whilst they are aesthetically pleasing, that matters not one jot when you lose your backup data only 3 weeks in to use. May just save my pennies and get a decent NAS drive instead. Very disapointing.

I have bought two similar 1TB USB storaged devices to ensure that I won't risk losing files, photographs and home videos.Now I don't need to store valuable records on my computer's internal hard drive, but just save to each external hard drive in turn.They were easy to install and operate satisfactorily. Because I don't want them to be powered up most of the time, I leave them plugged in to the mains and just connect the USB plugs to the sockets on the front of my computer when I need to access or save media files. In this way they are shut down most of the time.I have given each drive a unique name so they are easy to identify from 'Computer' drive listings.So far so good!